


334. loved by a god

by piggy09



Series: The Sestre Daily Drabble Project [31]
Category: Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: Gen, Human Sacrifice
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-31
Updated: 2016-07-31
Packaged: 2018-07-28 07:55:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 786
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7631545
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/piggy09/pseuds/piggy09
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Do you know,” Sarah says, “what they’re going to do to you?”</p>
            </blockquote>





	334. loved by a god

**Author's Note:**

> ...figure out the answer to that question from the helpful tag

The chambers where the sacrifice lives are the most beautiful parts of the temple – gemstones in the floor, caged birds singing from every alcove. Sarah isn’t fooled, though. She’s the one who has to clean all those birds’ _shit_.

So she keeps her head down and walks through the bright gilded corridors, at a pace that is almost but not quite a run. Outside the walls she can hear the people singing. The festival is starting soon. She doesn’t have much time.

She pulls on the enormous lapis lazuli-studded handle of the biggest door, winces at the bright light flashing off the gold. It pulls open with a ponderous, ceremonial slowness. _Fuck_ this door. She only gives it a few inches and then wriggles inside.

Inside there’s mounds of bright cushions, trays with the carcass remnants of delicate sugar-dusted pastries. A harp is lying in a pile of pillows like the bones of an animal half-devoured.

The sacrifice is sitting in another pile, like the same thing. Her feet are bare. The rings of bells she wears around her ankles jingle as she looks up at Sarah through wide eyes smudged with traditional pink. Her mouth opens into an “o.”

“You are _new_ ,” she says, and she’s so young. Her voice is strange and warped with god-weight, and she is so young. Sarah’s age, maybe. Too young.

“Yeah,” Sarah says, and urgently: “I’m gonna get you out of here.”

The sacrifice blinks at her. She blinks at the sacrifice. Neither of them move.

“Out?” says the girl. Her brow furrows, new wrinkles sprouting in her otherwise smooth face. She doesn’t stand up. She is probably encouraged not to; gods like veal, animals that live in a box in the dark until they don’t. Until they are offered up.

“We’re gonna – go,” Sarah says, words shriveling as they fall out of her mouth; her desperate righteousness is withering under the utter blankness of the other girl’s stare. Like she doesn’t understand what they’re going to _do_ to her. “I’m leaving, I’m leaving the temple, and I’m gonna – take you with me, yeah? So you don’t have to…”

“Don’t have to what,” says the girl. She curls her knees to her chest and hugs them. The bells on her wrists also jingle. There are flowers woven into her hair – they’re fresh, they must have been woven in _today_. She must have sat very still and let them—

“Do you know,” Sarah says, “what they’re going to do to you?”

Before the girl can answer, that enormous door starts slowly grinding its way across the floor again. Someone is opening it. Sarah freezes – she isn’t supposed to be in here, _nobody_ is supposed to be in here except the attendants. They’re going to kill her. And then they’re going to take this girl with flowers in her hair, and they’re going to kill her too. It will be so much more beautiful. It will be so much more slow.

“Please,” Sarah says to the sacrifice. “Come with me.”

The girl looks at Sarah, and the door, and Sarah again. She delicately presses her fingers to her lips, and then whispers: “Okay.”

She stands up, jingles across the room to the back wall, and presses one of the glittering rubies studded in the stone. A door opens. “This way,” says the girl, and Sarah sighs a _shit_ and follows her.

The passageway is dark – its walls are made of tiger’s eye and emeralds, jasper and jade. The girl waits until the door closes behind them and then starts heading purposefully into the dark. Sarah follows her.

“Hey,” she says – winces at the echo of her voice – “do you have a name?”

“No,” says the girl peacefully.

“Do you…want one?”

“I am not supposed to be named,” says the girl. “They say it makes it _easier to get attached_.” She holds out her hands. “See? No attachings.”

 _Not literally_ , Sarah thinks, but decides not to tell her. The only sound is the bells ringing in the dark; the only scent is the flowers. They should be running, probably, but Sarah winces at the thought of this girl’s bare feet being sliced open by the floor. Instead they move at a sort of half-jog.

Sarah has no idea what she’s going to do. She hadn’t gotten any further than _get the girl out, get yourself out, get the girl out._ Every single person in the temple is going to be looking for them. They will all want the two of them dead.

“Helena,” she says. The girl makes a confused sound.

“It’s yours,” Sarah says. “If you want it. Your name.”

“Helena,” says the girl, quietly. She nods to herself. “Okay.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Please kudos + comment if you enjoyed! :)


End file.
